


if they board, kill them all

by maybe_she_is



Category: Triangle (2009)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, Non-Canonical Character Death, Non-Canonical Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-19
Updated: 2016-04-19
Packaged: 2018-06-03 05:10:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6598090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maybe_she_is/pseuds/maybe_she_is
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once every twenty-seven cycles, Jess tells them instead of killing them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	if they board, kill them all

Once every twenty-seven cycles, Jess tells them instead of killing them.

She shows them the notes, writes another to prove her handwriting; but it doesn’t convince them, instead it only terrifies them into thinking she’s _psycho_. So she shows them the lockets, and then she’s a _dedicated psycho_.

She didn’t want to do this to them, but at this point there is no alternative.

Jess says _look_ , and they see all the corpses- all Sally’s corpses- and Downey is the one who shouts in horror while Sally stares blankly as birds eat at her body dozens of times over.

 _Now do you believe_ , says Jess, and they do, only it’s a fraction of a second too late because Jess has a bullet in her heart and blood on her lip as she urges them to _break the cycle, it’s the only way_.

And then Jess is dead, but it’s Jess who killed her, and Greg tries to reason with her, as he does every time he faces her gun.

Only this time, Jess lowers the gun.

 _I only came for her this time_ , Jess says, _I’m trying out a theory_.

 _Where’s your Jess_ , Jess asks, _the one who boarded with you_.

 _She’s dead_ , answers Sally, _her and Victor are both dead_.

And Jess smiles as she eats a bullet.

Downey jumps at the sound, and swears, but his cussing turns to shouts; theirs, on the upturned yacht.

And there is Jess again, and there they are with her.

The new group boards before the trio can stop them, and the upturned yacht is gone before they can escape.

And so they wait, avoiding their counterparts, for the yacht to return, but it doesn’t, and slowly they understand why.

Jess needs to die.

And so they try, but it goes horribly wrong, and Greg is killed by his counterpart.

Downey can’t take the shot, so Sally grabs the gun and shoots the Greg who’s not Greg, and the Jess who might be Jess, and even poor Victor.

Without hesitation, and not for lack of pleading, Sally shoots her own counterpart as Downey reaches for the gun and begs of her to _stop_.

And she does stop, but not before ending his own counterpart too. Downey promptly throws up on his own corpse.

Sally turns to him, and her voice is empty as she parrots Jess’s earlier words _if they board, kill them all._ And Downey looks at her like she’s mad, like he loves her and he’s so afraid.

Sally tells him  _I had to, we’d be dead otherwise, even if we do get off the ship there can’t be more than one Sally or Downey_ , and  _if they board, they must all die_. 

And so, shortly after, when the next group boards, Sally and Downey bide their time and catch them alone, one by one. They kill them all except for Greg and Jess, whose unconscious bodies they bring to the stairwell where they boarded to begin with, and the blood mixes with the deep hues of the water. 

 And Sally and Downey wait. They don't wait long, and soon the upturned yacht drifts into view. 

The joy at being rescued quickly fades from the new group's faces when they see Sally and Downey, drenched in blood and wielding guns, but their faces contort in a different way when the bullets hit them, and they fall- wide eyed, dead- into the sea. 

 Except for Jess. Because Sally and Downey planned for this, they know their chances of making it back to the mainland are  _questionable_ , so if they die, Jess will continue the cycle and they will have to trust that in the future, they'll find another way. 

 So an unconscious Jess is shoved aboard the Aeolus, one of her own  _if they board, kill them all_  notes in her palm. 

 And Sally and Downey drift away on the upturned yacht, and the Aeolus fades into the distance. 

**Author's Note:**

> this fic operates alongside the theory that the yacht doesn’t return specifically when Sally, Greg, Victor, Downey and one version of Jess die, but merely when 5 people die each cycle. 
> 
> also i love this movie so much


End file.
